this is false. They may differ by partition, since different parts (zones) of amodern disk have different recording densities and therefore transfer rates.IBM's spec sheet says rates vary from 15MB/sec to 31MB/sec... it he's seeing15MB/sec, maybe he should try the other end of the disk. can you verify this?try hdparm -t /dev/hda1 instead of hda5 (if those are on opposite ends of thedisk)

include output of fdisk so we can see partition layout, and results of hdparm ondifferent areas.>> since they don't go through it - maybe some interaction with the> buffering code).>> if you are testing a windows partition, you can expect to see> significantly lower values for hdparm:>> /dev/hda1:> Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 1.65 seconds = 77.58 MB/sec> Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 3.48 seconds = 18.39 MB/sec

please show us your partition table.

>>> Remarkably /dev/hda benches slightly better, even though the 64 MB read> are nearly the same as for hda1:>> /dev/hda:> Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 1.40 seconds = 91.43 MB/sec> Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 3.06 seconds = 20.92 MB/sec>> I also noticed that operations on a lot of files (like scanning for all> files in a filesystem as done by updatedb) got really slow with the 2.4> vfat fs, with a very high percentage (in the 90s) of CPU time attributed> to "system". Has anybody else noticed this?